He stopped short again. "Look here," he said, facing me. "Are you busy?
No? Then come back with me to my rooms; and--I"ll make a clean breast of it."
"By all means," I a.s.sented. "When one is young--and foolish--I have often noticed, as a medical man, that a drachm of clean breast is a magnificent prescription."
He walked back by my side, talking all the way of Daphne"s many adorable qualities. He exhausted the dictionary for laudatory adjectives. By the time I reached his door it was not HIS fault if I had not learned that the angelic hierarchy were not in the running with my pretty cousin for graces and virtues. I felt that Faith, Hope, and Charity ought to resign at once in favour of Miss Daphne Tepping, promoted.
He took me into his comfortably furnished rooms--the luxurious rooms of a rich young bachelor, with taste as well as money--and offered me a partaga. Now, I have long observed, in the course of my practice, that a choice cigar a.s.sists a man in taking a philosophic outlook on the question under discussion; so I accepted the partaga. He sat down opposite me and pointed to a photograph in the centre of his mantlepiece. "I am engaged to that lady," he put in, shortly.
"So I antic.i.p.ated," I answered, lighting up.
He started and looked surprised. "Why, what made you guess it?" he inquired.
I smiled the calm smile of superior age--I was some eight years or so his senior. "My dear fellow," I murmured, "what else could prevent you from proposing to Daphne--when you are so undeniably in love with her?"
"A great deal," he answered. "For example, the sense of my own utter unworthiness."
"One"s own unworthiness," I replied, "though doubtless real--p"f, p"f--is a barrier that most of us can readily get over when our admiration for a particular lady waxes strong enough. So THIS is the prior attachment!" I took the portrait down and scanned it.
"Unfortunately, yes. What do you think of her?"
I scrutinised the features. "Seems a nice enough little thing," I answered. It was an innocent face, I admit; very frank and girlish.
He leaned forward eagerly. "That"s just it. A nice enough little thing!
Nothing in the world to be said against her. While Daphne--Miss Tepping, I mean--" His silence was ecstatic.
I examined the photograph still more closely. It displayed a lady of twenty or thereabouts, with a weak face, small, vacant features, a feeble chin, a good-humoured, simple mouth, and a wealth of golden hair that seemed to strike a keynote.
"In the theatrical profession?" I inquired at last, looking up.
He hesitated. "Well, not exactly," he answered.
I pursed my lips and blew a ring. "Music-hall stage?" I went on, dubiously.
He nodded. "But a girl is not necessarily any the less a lady because she sings at a music-hall," he added, with warmth, displaying an evident desire to be just to his betrothed, however much he admired Daphne.
"Certainly not," I admitted. "A lady is a lady; no occupation can in itself unladify her.... But on the music-hall stage, the odds, one must admit, are on the whole against her."
"Now, THERE you show prejudice!"
"One may be quite unprejudiced," I answered, "and yet allow that connection with the music-halls does not, as such, afford clear proof that a girl is a compound of all the virtues."
"I think she"s a good girl," he retorted, slowly.
"Then why do you want to throw her over?" I inquired.
"I don"t. That"s just it. On the contrary, I mean to keep my word and marry her."
"IN ORDER to keep your word?" I suggested.
He nodded. "Precisely. It is a point of honour."
"That"s a poor ground of marriage," I went on. "Mind, I don"t want for a moment to influence you, as Daphne"s cousin. I want to get at the truth of the situation. I don"t even know what Daphne thinks of you. But you promised me a clean breast. Be a man and bare it."
He bared it instantly. "I thought I was in love with this girl, you see," he went on, "till I saw Miss Tepping."
"That makes a difference," I admitted.
"And I couldn"t bear to break her heart."
"Heaven forbid!" I cried. "It is the one unpardonable sin. Better anything than that." Then I grew practical. "Father"s consent?"
"MY father"s? IS it likely? He expects me to marry into some distinguished English family."
I hummed a moment. "Well, out with it!" I exclaimed, pointing my cigar at him.
He leaned back in his chair and told me the whole story. A pretty girl; golden hair; introduced to her by a friend; nice, simple little thing; mind and heart above the irregular stage on to which she had been driven by poverty alone; father dead; mother in reduced circ.u.mstances. "To keep the home together, poor Sissie decided--"
"Precisely so," I murmured, knocking off my ash. "The usual self-sacrifice! Case quite normal! Everything en regle!"
"You don"t mean to say you doubt it?" he cried, flushing up, and evidently regarding me as a hopeless cynic. "I do a.s.sure you, Dr.
c.u.mberledge, the poor child--though miles, of course, below Miss Tepping"s level--is as innocent, and as good--"
"As a flower in May. Oh, yes; I don"t doubt it. How did you come to propose to her, though?"
He reddened a little. "Well, it was almost accidental," he said, sheepishly. "I called there one evening, and her mother had a headache and went up to bed. And when we two were left alone, Sissie talked a great deal about her future and how hard her life was. And after a while she broke down and began to cry. And then--"
I cut him short with a wave of my hand. "You need say no more," I put in, with a sympathetic face. "We have all been there."
We paused a moment, while I puffed smoke at the photograph again.
"Well," I said at last, "her face looks to me really simple and nice. It is a good face. Do you see her often?"
"Oh, no; she"s on tour."
"In the provinces?"
"M"yes; just at present, at Scarborough."
"But she writes to you?"
"Every day."
"Would you think it an unpardonable impertinence if I made bold to ask whether it would be possible for you to show me a specimen of her letters?"
He unlocked a drawer and took out three or four. Then he read one through, carefully. "I don"t think," he said, in a deliberative voice, "it would be a serious breach of confidence in me to let you look through this one. There"s really nothing in it, you know--just the ordinary average every-day love-letter."
I glanced through the little note. He was right. The conventional hearts and darts epistle. It sounded nice enough: "Longing to see you again; so lonely in this place; your dear sweet letter; looking forward to the time; your ever-devoted Sissie."
"That seems straight," I answered. "However, I am not quite sure. Will you allow me to take it away, with the photograph? I know I am asking much. I want to show it to a lady in whose tact and discrimination I have the greatest confidence."